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dr_fred

Listed below are comments made by dr_fred between Wednesday, 25th March 2009 and Wednesday, 25th March 2009.

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The inspiration of Ada Lovelace 10:52am on 25 Mar 2009 Not wishing to stir up a hornet's nest, but have you considered:

a) maybe girls are not as interested in computer science as boys? Other courses as you indicate may find the ratio reversed completely. This does not prove a misogynist hegemony as you seem to be driven to suggest. As a female within the field you are ideally placed to stimulate and encourage other girls to share your interest and perhaps you could use your energies more positively in that direction.

b) Whilst this might go against the grain, it is possible that there are fundamental differences in the skill sets of men and women and the type of work they are drawn toward. Many studies have been done into these differences and whilst they are generally regarded as tendencies, not absolutes, these could account for some of the imbalance you perceive. I have no doubt the women on your course are as equally capable as the men on your course, but the important phrase here is not men or women, it is "on your course". How many of either sex are willing or capable of the devotion required to what is undoubtedly an intellectually demanding subject?

c) To pick up on your somewhat disparaging inference about the lack of logic and rationality in the "life" sciences as you put it, perhaps computer science tends to attract those that lack the additional (for example, people) skills required to succeed in these sciences. Perhaps the relatively high level of women in these fields represents the fact that they are actually, in general, better rounded individuals?

As you are a self-professed logical and rational person, I hope you will take these points in the manner in which they are meant, namely to present alternative, equally valid deductions from your initial statement to contrast your potentially unfounded insistence that it is male chauvinism that is keeping women out of computer science. If not, please feel free to continue the rant! :-)

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